


It talks in tongues and quiet sighs

by guineapiggie



Series: All This (and Heaven Too) [1]
Category: The Hour (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Canon, rambling and sadness but also hope?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 23:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21127085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guineapiggie/pseuds/guineapiggie
Summary: She sighed, fists clenching and unclenching in the starched linen. “That night, on your birthday. Do you remember?”His fingers moved, limply, towards hers, then stilled in resignation. “We were dancing,” he murmured.“After that. Lucerne.”“Yes. How happy we would be. In five years.”Her eyes were stinging. “Ecstatic,” she corrected softly. “Us and… Herbert? Herbert and Maude?”“Christ, Bel. My head hurts,” he said faintly, voice caving in around the edges.She was crying now. Damn. “Sorry. God, Freddie, I’m sorry, I’ll… I’ll let you –““Gilbert,” he said suddenly. “Gilbert and Maude.”She cared too much, about the world in general, and thrice-damned Frederick Lyon in particular.





	It talks in tongues and quiet sighs

**Author's Note:**

> This is purely therapy. Oh, why did I watch this show?

> _Man soll den Mächten, die das Herz erschufen,_  
_nicht dankbar sein._
> 
> (One shouldn't be grateful to the forces that  
created the heart.)
> 
> \- Erich Kästner: Er weiß nicht, ob er sie liebt

* * *

“You know what I want?” she whispered, fingers digging into the thin mattress, inches from his hand. It looked so pale in the dim light filtering in from the corridor, so very pale. A ghost, almost. She felt wretched just looking at it, at his delicate pianist fingers that were so familiar and yet looked so _dead. _

_Freddie’s not dead, _she told herself, every morning, before she opened her eyes, and with every _clack _of the typewriter and every ring of the phone. _Freddie’s not dead not dead not dead._

But something was. Some part of him, or her, or worse; some part of _them. _When had it died? Before this, before blood and anxiety-filled minutes ticking away staring at Miss Delaine’s pale face and silvery curls… before they’d killed that poor, poor girl, that poor girl who was hardly twenty and so pretty and so scared and who’d _trusted_ them… no, long before all that. It had died sometime during their time apart, died quietly, with no one to notice until long after it was gone.

“What?” He spoke softly, his voice hoarse, and agonisingly slowly, and that was the terrible thing. Freddie’s brain and his mouth worked at a mile a minute, always had, and now… he was half-awake at best these days, separated from her by a haze of either morphine or pain, and it killed her. It killed her.

“What do you want, Bel?”

She sighed, fists clenching and unclenching in the starched linen. “That night, on your birthday. Do you remember?”

His fingers moved, limply, towards hers, then stilled in resignation. “We were dancing,” he murmured.

“After that. Lucerne.”

“Yes. How happy we would be. In five years.”

Her eyes were stinging. “_Ecstatic,_” she corrected softly. “Us and… Herbert? Herbert and Maude?”

“Christ, Bel. My head hurts,” he said faintly, voice caving in around the edges.

She was crying now. Damn. “Sorry. God, Freddie, I’m sorry, I’ll… I’ll let you –“

“_Gilbert,_” he said suddenly. “Gilbert and Maude.”

Bel laughed, hot shameful tears running down her throat and dripping onto her collarbone – God, what a horrible person she was. Here he was, alive, _awake, _and she was crying. She missed him. He was inches away, and she _missed _him so desperately.

“I _was _happy, you know,” she whispered, gripping and releasing the sheets. “I was happy. Everything was… just right. In that moment. Everything.”

“Bel…”

“No,” she said with too much force, cutting him short. “I just… I just mean… It was so… not easy, but… that night at Hector’s, in that _ridiculous_ bed…” She swallowed, and her throat felt sore. “When did we stop being like that? Why did we stop being like that?” Finally, she managed to tear her eyes away from his hand. Most of the swelling on his face had gone, both eyes hooded but open, but the bruises were unmistakable even in the dark. She forced herself to look – didn’t want him to think she was somehow disgusted. She wasn’t, it wasn’t that. It was just hard to bear, that was all. Hopefully, in this light, he couldn’t see her tears.

She could see his, though, so that probably wasn’t much to hope for.

“I’m sorry, Bel.”

“No, no,” she breathed, and wanted to take his hand, but could she? Did she deserve to? When she was sat here crying for a lost love who wasn’t dead, did she deserve to hold his ghost’s hand?

“I want…” He faltered, resumed. “I want to promise. Promise that… that… we can be again. But –“ There was a soft sob, then a whimper.

Broken ribs. The doctors had told her not to try to make him laugh, but they shouldn’t have worried. All she seemed to do was make him cry.

No, she couldn’t look. She whispered his name instead, stupidly. As if the two-hundred-and-eighth time, the Freddie she missed would answer.

“I don’t know… how much I can promise,” he whispered, and oh, he sounded as broken as he looked.

“Don’t…”

“You’re _miserable_. I never… I never wanted you miserable, Bel. Never. If it’s too hard, then…” he went on, strained, half-shattered… but still Freddie. Still Freddie.

It didn’t matter. None of it. For God’s sake, this wasn’t just anyone, just any unavailable man she’d pinned some fleeting affection on, this was _Freddie_. However much of him was left, she didn’t want anyone else, not really. She’d take what she could get, and she’d give more than she had. Not because he deserved it – she wasn’t sure he did, really – but she would, because that was who she was. She cared too much, about the world in general, and thrice-damned Frederick Lyon in particular.

“No. Freddie, don’t.” She ran her hand over her eyes, and grasped his hand, too tightly. He had the grace to shut up, for once. “_Don’t_. You don’t need to promise anything. Just get better. Come back. We need you.”

He smiled weakly, and then, after a moment – “_We. _Bit disappointing, Moneypenny.”

There he was, just a glimmer of him. The ghost was a little more flesh, a little more bone. Maybe there was hope. There had to be, because…

“_Fine. I _won’t do it without you.”

Still that smile, a little stronger now. “Nuh-uh. Not good enough.”

She glared at him, only half in jest. “I _could _do it without you. I would hate it, I’d despair of it, but I _could._”

“C’mon, Bel.” His eyes fell shut. “Such narrow misses.”

_Get better. Come back. You infuriate me. You keep me on my toes. You make me laugh. You make me think. You exhaust me, Freddie, you make me care too much about you and I hate you I hate you I hate you and I always will and I love you, too. I do love you. I _do, _Freddie. _

“Come back,” she repeated softly, getting to her feet, and couldn’t bring herself to let go of his hand. Not yet. It didn’t feel like a ghost’s; it was warm. She leaned over and kissed his forehead, just by the hairline, where there were no bruises – still, she barely touched his skin. He was so fragile, so broken.

He’d get better. He had to.

“I include myself in that ‘we’. I do miss you,” she whispered.

Freddie sighed, quivering breath brushing her collarbone, and she shivered. “Not good enough, Bel.”

_I hate you, _she thought with a sore, aching, hopeful heart. _I love you. _“Earn the rest, James. Get better. Come back.”

“I thought… I don’t have to promise.”

She rolled her eyes, and smiled. Leaned back so he could see. “Alright. Get smart with me.”

“You said.”

She shook her head, reached out to touch his face but couldn’t find a patch of skin that didn’t look bruised and opted for his hair instead, greasy and unwashed though it was. “Alright. One promise.”

His eyes were glimmering dangerously again. God, he looked so scared. “Bel, I don’t know –“

“Promise you’ll try. That’s all. Get however well you can. Promise that.”

He smiled, and it looked fake and scared but it was there. “Yes. Promise.”

She nodded, tapped the mattress, stepped away. Looking at him hurt, but walking away did, too.

“I’ll try and be here tomorrow, alright, and –“

“You should be at work, Bel,” he said with some firmness. “And you should… do something. That makes you smile.”

“We’ve hardly done much to be proud of,” she said flatly. “You’ve seen it.”

He grimaced – he had, probably, Marnie came to watch the show with him, Bel was fairly sure. But in his state, he could barely follow a conversation, let alone the news, though not for lack of trying.

“Fine. Go out, then. At least grab Sissy and Lix and go through all her whiskey.”

For a second and a half, she was back at his birthday party, light and silly and _happy. _She smiled through it. Life taught a girl how.

“I just might. I’ll let you rest. But I’ll be here. Day after tomorrow at the latest.”

Another stitched-on smile. “I know. You do need me.”

“Oh, go to hell.”

His smile widened, a little. “Goodnight, Bel.”

In the cab, she almost fell asleep, and barely dragged herself up the stairs to her lonely little flat.

Maybe when he got better, she could get him a phone. She could lie on the sofa and have just his voice in her ear, instead of dragging herself halfway across town, bone-tired and with sore feet, and she could feel like he was there with her. Whole and solid and real, just there next to her in the dark, scribbling away on a wrinkled piece of paper about some story or other.

And maybe, in a little while, when he got out of here… just warmth and conversation and unprompted poetry quotes, and someone to drink wine with and to keep the nightmares at bay. That wasn’t asking too much, was it?

She didn’t need to be so terribly brave for that.

She wanted to have things back the way they had been, but she wouldn’t ask for that. She wouldn’t ask for the old times. She just wanted him to be better, to be back where he belonged. Things with Freddie were never simple, and hardly ever easy, but maybe they could be good again, someday. Someday soon.

* * *

> _And the heart is hard to translate_  
_It has a language of it's own_  
_It talks in tongues and quiet sighs _  
_And prayers and proclamations in the grand days _  
_Of great men and the smallest of gestures_  
_In short shallow gasps_
> 
> _But with all my education_  
_I can't seem to commend it_  
_And the words are all escaping me_  
_And coming back all damaged_  
_And I would put them back in poetry_  
_If I only knew how -  
_
> 
> \- Florence + the machine: All This and Heaven Too


End file.
